The present invention relates to a unit for feeding and applying seals to security cassettes for banknotes.
In particular, the invention finds application to advantage in machines by which banknotes are put into relative security cassettes, the art field to which explicit reference is made in the following specification albeit implying no limitation in general scope.
It is well known that banks need to move notable amounts of paper money around on a daily basis, whether central banks by which new banknotes are issued, or trading banks through which the notes are circulated. To this end, banknotes are first sorted into groups and then put into bags or into security cassettes, as mentioned above, for the purposes of handling and transport.
The cassettes are conventional in embodiment, consisting in a container and a lid hinged to the container, of which the lid can be secured in the closed position by a removable fastening mechanism that comprises a catch element associated with a portion of the lid, and a latch and clamp element operating in conjunction with a portion of the container.
To ensure that the cassettes can be transported without the risk of their being broken open and to render them tamper-proof, the fastening mechanism incorporates two slots, which, when the mechanism is placed in the operating condition to close the cassette, will accommodate two lugs projecting respectively from the lid and from the container, affording respective through holes positioned to receive the teeth of a seal.
The seal comprises two parts designed to couple together non-releasably, hinged one to another and maneuverable thus from a condition in which the seal is open to a closed condition in which the teeth are inserted into the through holes of the lugs, integral respectively with the lid and with the container, thereby securing the cassette.
In prior art practice the steps of positioning and applying the seal are entirely manual, and this tends to slow down the operating cycle of machines by which the banknotes are put into the cassettes.
The object of the present invention is to provide a unit for feeding and applying seals to security cassettes containing banknotes such as will render the operation of sealing the cassettes completely automatic.
The stated object is realized in a unit according to the present invention for feeding and applying seals to security cassettes for banknotes, wherein the cassette comprises a container and a lid, the seal is composed of at least two parts affording respective latch means designed to engage relative receiving means afforded both by the container and by the lid, and the parts of the seal are designed to couple together non-releasably and maneuverable from an open condition to a closed condition in which the cassette is secured through the agency of the latch means. The unit disclosed comprises feed means by which the seals are handled in the open condition, means by which the selfsame seals are gripped and positioned alongside the receiving means in an operating position, and means by which the two parts of the seal are coupled together in such a way as to produce the closed condition.